Poster:	felishumanus
Date:	2009-07-09 11:49
Subject:	An Introduction
Security:	Public

Hi

Just thought I would introduce myself. My sister lives in Iceland and is currently expecting her first child. So I thought I best start learning some of the language. On my only visit to the country (to date) all I really managed was saying Takk a lot.

I shall browse through the suggested links on the profile page for this community later, but it anyone has any tips on pronunciation, and other resources that would be great.

Also what are the words for Niece and Nephew? all the word lists I have found online today don't include them :(

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2009-06-01 14:22
Subject:	possession is complicated
Security:	Public
Music:	"Boadicea" by Enya

I did look up the chapter in my book explaining possession but it's a few chapters off from where I left off and quite confusing. Can someone help me out?

How would I say "Sigdrifa's Prayer"? My dictionary says that prayer is bæn.

Poster:	psych0naut
Date:	2009-05-08 23:40
Subject:	Icelandic board games
Security:	Public

When I was learning Hungarian, one great idea our teacher had was to bring a Hungarian Scrabble set to class, give us a bunch of tiles at random, and have a contest to see who could make the most words. It was a great and fun way of exercising our vocabulary. With this in mind, last week I placed a mail order for Scrabble in Icelandic. The store, Eymundsson, also had Icelandic Monopoly, so I ordered that too! Scrabble was 4012 kr., Monopoly was 7225 kr., and airmail shipping to Britain was 3310 kr. The package arrived just three days after being mailed.

My classmates and I will have a go at playing both games, making sure to speak in Icelandic only. Of course, for Monopoly we'll have to learn some new vocabulary (mortgage, rent, dice, tax, etc.), but playing should give us lots of practice with conversations relating to buying and selling, and with numbers.

I think the board spaces are named after streets in Reykjavik, and the currency is, of course, the Icelandic króna. As there are no railways in Iceland, the four spaces with railroads in the original edition are replaced with three airports and a bus station. The airport spaces have airplane symbols instead of locomotive symbols, but curiously the bus station space retains the locomotive symbol. Unfortunately, the Chance and Community Chest cards lack the Rich Uncle Pennybags illustrations of the American edition.

Here's the board layout, which I've submitted to Wikipedia's article on localized editions of Monopoly.

Frítt stæði	Ármúli 22.000 kr.	Áhætta	Síðumúli 22.000 kr.	Suðurlandsbraut 24.000 kr.	Akureyrar- flugvöllur 20.000 kr.	Bankastræti 26.000 kr.	Austurstræti 26.000 kr.	Orkuveita Reykjavíkur 15.000 kr.	Laugavegur 28.000 kr.	Farðu í fangelsi
Krókháls 20.000 kr.	MONOPOLY									Mávanes 30.000 kr.
Fossháls 18.000 kr.										Haukanes 30.000 kr.
Samfélagssjóður										Samfélagssjóður
Lyngháls 18.000 kr.										Blikanes 32.000 kr.
Egilsstaða- flugvöllur 20.000 kr.										Leifsstöð 20.000 kr.
Bíldshöfði 16.000 kr.										Áhætta
Höfðabakki 14.000 kr.										Smáralind 35.000 kr.
Rarik 15.000 kr.										Fjármagns- tekjuskattur borgaðu (10.000 kr.)
Stórhöfði 14.000 kr.										Kringlan 40.000 kr.
Fangelsi/Bara í heimsókn	Haukalind 12.000 kr.	Jöklalind 10.000 kr.	Áhætta	Kaldalind 10.000 kr.	BSÍ Umferðar- miðstöðin 20.000 kr.	Tekjuskattur- borgaðu (20.000 kr.)	Brávallagata 6.000 kr.	Samfélagssjóður	Bárugata 6.000 kr.	BYRJUN Þú færð 20.000 kr. í hvert skipti sem þú ferð hér framhjá

In case anyone else is interested in ordering games, you can check out what's available at Eymundsson, but the website currently doesn't take online orders for customers outside Iceland. If you call them, though, they speak English and are happy to take international orders by phone or fax. You'll need a credit card. The salesperson in charge of international orders is Renate Steingrímsdóttir Ólafsson, tel. +354 540 2000 / fax +354 511 1151.

Oh, and be sure to check out my own LiveJournal as I occasionally post Icelandic language-related stuff there that doesn't end up on this community board. :)

Poster:	ingunnping
Date:	2009-03-11 00:31
Subject:	kennsluefni í íslensku
Security:	Public

hey guys, nice site you've got here!

I'm an Icelandic student of linguistics in Russia and I have some friends who really want to learn Icelandic. I'm gathering material for them (well, some of it I'm just making myself) and the stuff I've found online is, in my opinion, rather poor and, in some cases, just plain wrong. Do you guys have any good resources, like in basic grammar, syntax and conversation?

I'd be very grateful if you could point something out for me and I'm more than willing to help if anyone has any questions.

ciao!

Ingunn

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2009-03-09 21:53
Subject:	Ragnheiður Gröndal
Security:	Public
Music:	"Skjótt Hefur Sól Brugðist" by Ragnheiður Gröndal

I wouldn´t normally post something like this here but I have googled and actually come up with zero results so I was hoping maybe someone could help. I love Ragnheiður Gröndal's voice and I have her þjóðlög cd. My Icelandic is nowhere near good enough to be able to figure out what she's singing though. Can anyone translate some of her songs for me? Or, if you know of a webpage that has this info, can you point it out to me as I've been unable to find it. Thanks a lot.

Poster:	ironlord
Date:	2009-01-14 18:33
Subject:	Góðan dag(inn?)
Security:	Public

Ég læri íslensku... og það er erfiðan erfitt!

So none of you have seen me before, as I'm a raw beginner, and as is fitting for my utter dearth of experience, that Faceache update you see there took about 20 minutes to write. No joking; most of the time was spent finding out whether "læra" declined as "ég læra" or "ég læri", with no clues as to how to find out.

Here's the Saga: in August, to celebrate 30 years on the planet, I'll be visiting Iceland for two weeks. As I'm not staying in and around Reykjavík and the touristy areas for more than a couple of days, I thought I'd better get some of the native language under my belt. As you'll see from the icon, I've made my choice of textbook after some extensive research, and I'll be picking up this dictionary in the very near future, as it appears I have no better options.

My previous experiences of learning languages lead me to bring you all a few questions before I get started seriously. Verb tables, for instance: are there any available, say, either in book form or on t'internet? Learning German at school involved lengthy sessions of reciting strong verbs (essen, to eat; essen, isst, aß, hat gesessen...) and battering through irregular verb tables to make absolutely sure we knew them all instantly. Latin involved merciless drilling in verb conjugations which were never given in any shorter form than (e.g.) moneo, monere, monevi, monetum - that way there could be no confusion as to any of the verb's grammatical constructions. Colloquial Icelandic's vocabulary at the back contains no such essential info, giving the translation of "learn" as no more than "læra", hence my confusion above about it being an "i" verb and not an "a" verb. There must be somewhere that points out the verb conjugation in more detail.

Other than that, with a maximum of seven months available to me, what chance do I have of completing the book in that time? For reference, I was good at languages when I was at school, but that was quite a while back, and I'm now older than it is ideal to be for language learning. Still, in that time I've picked up a PhD (in organic chemistry) so I'm no mug.

I think you'll be hearing rather a lot from me until mid-July or so.

EDIT: ...and I knew I'd got something wrong in the intro line. I suspect I'm going to find myself in Reykjavík still sounding like Babelfish...

Poster:	mizenki
Date:	2008-12-16 23:21
Subject:	Því Allt Það sem Ég Óska ert Þú...
Security:	Public
Mood:	-dancing-
Music:	Allt það sem ég óska ert þú

Much to my pleasure, I've found that Friðrik Ómar (I have a tiny obsession with him) released a cover of "All I Want for Christmas is You", that fun Christmas song by Mariah Carey. Being as such, I have to sing this song. I found the first few lines online, but that's it:

"Ég vil ekki íkja mikið undir þetta jólatré,
ég vil ekki nýja slaufu eða aðra skirtu í stíl
ég vil bara finna skjól
vera hjá þér þessi jól Ég óska mér þess nú
því allt það sem ég óska ert þú!"

Would anyone be like the coolest human ever and possibly transcribe the lyrics for me? I don't have enough of an ear for Icelandic yet, so I only catch words... not too helpful. Takk kælega!

Laginn er hér: Allt það sem ég óska ert þú...

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2008-12-15 11:21
Subject:	Adjectives
Security:	Public
Music:	"Asche Zu Asche" by Rammstein

I'm on exercise 3 in chapter 5 of Colloquial Icelandic by Daisy L. Neijmann and I'm confused.

The instructions say:
"Go back to the pictures in exercise 1. Write sentences for each, describing the clothing depicted there according to your own opinion. Remember to pay attention to the correct gender forms of the adjectives you used:

DæmiÆ 1. Úlpan er flott. Hún er hlý. Hún er hvít, etc.

Adjectives take on not only the gender and number but also the case of the noun(s) they describe, so in order to start using adjectives more elaborately, you need to learn their case forms. Before proceeding to the adjectival declensions, however, you should first make sure that you have a fairly firm grasp of the noun and article declensions so that you will not mix them up."

My first question is what is Úlpan? Is that a name? My second question is, how do I know which case to use? The examples appear to not be using an ending which is confusing because they are describing a guy so would use masculine endings, right? And all of the masculine declensions have suffixes.

Poster:	psych0naut
Date:	2008-12-12 12:30
Subject:	Lang-8
Security:	Public

Today on the Omniglot Blog I read about a website called Lang-8. Its premise is that language learners write journal entries in a language they're learning, and get them corrected by native speakers of that language.

I don't think there's any Icelandic on the site yet, but who knows, if someone starts posting in Icelandic maybe someone else will come along and correct it…

Poster:	_clochette_
Date:	2008-11-25 10:54
Subject:	A translation question
Security:	Public

Hi, everyone. I hope this kind of thing is allowed; if not, then I apologise and please feel free to delete.

I am hoping someone can help me with a lyric translation and possible rephrasing. The lyric in question is from Björk's Verandi, which is a b-side from the Vespertine album, and reads thus:

Poster:	psych0naut
Date:	2008-11-18 10:31
Subject:	Declining the ferret
Security:	Public

Greetings, all.

I want to know how to decline the Icelandic word for "ferret", which I am told by my Icelandic friend is frettur. (I could be wrong on this, though; I can't find this term in any dictionary, and Google shows there are very few instances of it online.)

I assume that frettur is a masculine noun, but how is it declined? Is it similar to strákur, as below?

Or is it perhaps declined similar to köttur?

Or is neither of the above correct?

Also, how would I translate "ferret litter box"? I know "cat litter box" is kattarklósett or kattarkló, so would the equivalent for ferrets be a frettarklo or frettskló? My Icelandic teacher thinks it might be frettakló but she's not sure.

Poster:	psych0naut
Date:	2008-11-10 12:44
Subject:	Online Icelandic resources
Security:	Public

Greetings, all.

It's my first post here, so I thought I'd share some of my links to useful resources for learning Icelandic. (The ones listed on this community's profile are a bit scant and out of date.) Please feel free to let me know if I've missed any.

Dictionaries

Icelandic Online Dictionary

Icelandic–English only, but you can also search the full text of the entries to simulate English–Icelandic lookups.

Þýðingamiðstöð utanríkisráðuneytisins

English–Icelandic and Icelandic–English

Wiktionary / Wikiorðabók

Multilingual dictionary in wiki format. It contains a sorted list of Icelandic entries.

The Icelandic Word Bank / Orðabanki Íslenskrar Málstöðvar

English–Icelandic and Icelandic–English dictionary of technical terms

ordabok.is

English–Icelandic and Icelandic–English; 150,000 headwords. Paid subscriptions only; ISK 167 to ISK 500 per month.

Icelandic Phrase Page

English–Icelandic phrasebook for some colloquial expressions

Icelandic/English Dictionary

Icelandic–English; 1000 headwords

Grammar

Modern Icelandic Inflections

Gives inflectional forms for Icelandic words (nouns, verbs, etc.)

Verbix

Gives inflectional forms for Icelandic verbs

Parallel texts

Jónas Hallgrímsson: Selected Poetry and Prose

Side-by-side English translation of the Icelandic originals. Many entries also have audio recordings.

Heimskringla

The full text of the sagas in English and Icelandic

Bilingual readings about Iceland and Icelandic History, Society, and Culture

Contains Selections from Úlfar Bragason, Baldur A. Sigurvinsson, and Guðrún Theodórsdóttir, Carry On Icelandic (2004)

Icelandic texts

Wikiheimild

Public domain Icelandic texts

Icelandic Online Readings

Includes Icelandic literature and selected articles from Morgunblaðið

Miscellaneous

Bookmarks for Iceland

A huge list of links related to Iceland and the Icelandic language

Poster:	schnee
Date:	2008-11-09 21:12
Subject:	knulluðu?
Security:	Public

Hi again, I've got another question - specifically, what verb does "knulluðu" (subjunctive mood/past tense, as far as I can tell) come from? I've got a gut feeling it might be "knulla", but I cannot actually find that verb in any dictionary I've got access to, and I can't find anything else that would work, either.

The sentence I'm looking at is the following:

Ég spurði nýja bróður minn út í þetta og hann sagði mér að þegar maður og kona vildu vera dónaleg knulluðu þau með klofinu, stóri bróðir hans í Svíþjóð hefði sagt sér það. Við földum okkur á bak við sófa og knulluðum og okkur fannst við vera dónar í sérflokki.

I'm really at a loss here. Given that the narrator in the story and her new brother are still children, I suppose it might mean "smooch" or something similar, but I'm REALLY just guessing there, so... smá hjálp? :)

Poster:	schnee
Date:	2008-11-03 21:27
Subject:	"að einu í einu"?
Security:	Public
Mood:	hopeful

Hi everyone,

can anybody help me with the following sentence? I'm trying to figure it out, but I'm a bit stuck at the moment - I've identified a couple of phrases and understood the general structure etc., but I'm having a gut feeling that "að einu í einu" may be a fixed phrase that I haven't been able to find anywhere, and I'm not really getting any further right now without that piece.

Ég sem hafði hlotið kvenlegra uppeldi var sem steini lostin yfir því að hann skyldi ekki láta sér nægja að leika að einu í einu og ganga frá því jafnóðum.

Also, I'm not really sure whether the "ekki" belongs to "skyldi" or "láta sér eitthvað nægja" here.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. :)

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2008-11-03 13:45
Subject:	where things are
Security:	Public
Music:	"Pieces of the Sun (Radio Version)" by Test Your Reflex

When you are telling someone what street/lane/road/etc. something is on, how do you know when to use í and when to use á?

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2008-10-25 13:47
Subject:	say what?
Security:	Public
Music:	"Oer" by Ffynnon

búðirnar isn't in my dictionary. What does it mean?

My sentence is "Ég ætla skóda búðirnar."

I am planning to see - what?

Thanks!

Poster:	wihaz
Date:	2008-10-23 04:06
Subject:	Colloquial vs Teach Yourself?
Security:	Public
Music:	Korpiklaani - Palovana

Hi everyone,

I 'm new to Icelandic and am starting to learn it just now, not just to gain reading knowledge but to also obtain speaking/listening confidence in the language as well. I have Einarsson's "Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary" as my guide, but of course an audio component is of crucial importance as well... which leads me to my question:

Which is the better package to get: Colloquial Icelandic or Teach Yourself Icelandic (revised 2004 edition)?
What are the advantages/drawbacks of each? How clearly does each present the material, what's the quality of oral/listening exercises, how articulate are the native speakers in the exercises and how well does their pronunciation represent typical native Icelandic pronunciation?

Pardon if this question had been asked before, in which case simply refer me to the relevant post and I'll delete this one for repetitiveness.

(ps. If it would help to be taken into account when comparing these two learning packages, I know German and am familiar with Norwegian, Swedish, and to a small extent Old Norse - so the study of language in general is not new to me, just Icelandic in particular.. if one of the above two book packages is leaning more towards childlike oversimplification, then probably I should be getting the other one. The goal of my wanting to obtain one of these packages is not really to pick up a few handy phrases - although that wouldn't hurt too -, but for the sake of the listening/spoken factor, for as thorough an audio immersion as the 'colloquial' or 'teach yourself' format allows.)

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2008-09-25 19:50
Subject:	vocab question
Security:	Public
Music:	"Undivided" by Jessica Riddle Jacobs

It's not in my dictionary. What does "bæ" mean?

As in, "Ég ætla ganga niður í bæ."

I am going to walk down...

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2008-09-25 15:20
Subject:	check my work?
Security:	Public
Music:	"Twenty One" by The Cranberries

I think I declined this correctly AND I think I understand it. Whee!

Afreiðslumaðurinn hjálpar konunni að finna leiðsöguhandbók.

The salesman helps the woman to find a guidebook.

How'd I do?

Poster:	snowmoon3
Date:	2008-09-23 14:35
Subject:	how am I doing?
Security:	Public
Music:	"Angel" by Shaggy

Hvað ætlarðu að fá? Ég ætla að fá fisk.

What should you get/do you think you should/will get/?
I think to get fish. (should fish be in accusative case here?)

What is the conjugation on ætla in the question?

Thank you!